Hi folks
After having just been through, and surviving the festive season, all of us should be well rested, relaxed and raring to get back into main stream work. For those of us who have children, organising their first days back at school … yippee! I won’t go into the blow-by-blow details of my family’s exploits during this period, other than to say we had a wonderful time swimming, boating, fishing, surfing, eating great food and drinking even better wine – Rutherglen Estates … of course!
The weather has been relatively good to us here in Rutherglen. Prior to Christmas, and for this year to date, we have had quite a few days above 35°C. We have also had a lot of cool nights, which has enabled our grapevines to rest and recuperate through those cooler times, therefore build and produce the fruit flavours required for the grapes. This allows our winemakers to produce a great bottle of wine.
At the start of any vintage there is an air of expectation that the fruit quality and yields we actually achieve are where we planned them to be. We hope that all of our well executed and educated vineyard management planning and implementation of pruning, canopy management, irrigation, pest and disease control, and preventative maintenance programs to machinery, and particularly staff training, have worked throughout the year. Also that when we drive the harvester into the very first row of vines for the year, firstly, the machinery runs, and secondly and most importantly, we achieve what we set out to achieve, good yields and great fruit.
Touch wood, to date this has been achieved! We harvested our first fruit of vintage 2010, 45.6 tonnes on 29 January (same date as last year). All up we have harvested approximately 120 tonnes. Matthew, our viticulturist, and Marc, our winemaker, are very happy with the results to date, and hope that the same continues to apply throughout this vintage. We still have approximately 3,000 tonnes to go, but should be finished mid to end of April.
Keep safe. Keep drinking Rutherglen Estates. And I will continue to update you on how the rest of the vintage goes throughout the season.
Regards Phil
and the team from Rutherglen Estates
